ShutterStock; a quick bitch.

I recently submitted 10 photos to shutterstock in an attempt to get approved and make a bit of moolah. The photos I submitted for approval were, in my usual style, a mixture of sports, events and arty stuff. It would appear that the bigwigs at shutterstock want mindless camera clickery. Oooh no, nothing too far from the ordinary. Nothing with a bit of contrast. In fact, the only two that were accepted were a fairly standard shot of the surfers in Garretstown and a fireworks shot from Cobh. I’m disgusted. How patronising was the email they sent me? Something like;

“We hope you develop your skills and return to us at a later date”

I know I’m far from professional but every so often I am capable of taking a decent photograph. I know that from the comments I get on some of them. A good deal of my stuff might not be pro standard but I get lucky every so often. I guess I’m just nursing a bruised ego at the moment. Feckers!

I hate when that happens. Over the course of a very late night I sent istockphoto about 20 photos just to get approved. I think it must have been the same reviewer each time because when I eventually managed to get 3 images they liked he made a humerous comment to welcome me onboard.

Since then I’ve only put a few images up, and made about $33 from shutterstock, mostly from the sales of photos of photographers I refered to their site
I made $0.20 on istockphoto with the sale of one photo but I really have to upload a few more shots to both.

It was mainly out of curiosity, having read the response that Ryan received, that I decided to submit a few of my own. Now I own an online store where I sell my wares, and also submit to two agencies. After a week, having sent in my 10 best selling images, NONE of mine were accepted, and pretty much received the same reply as above. Now the sad reflection for me is that I’ve worked professionally in the field, so is this a reflection on my standard of work? I hope not. As for the camera equip, I use 2 Canon EOS1′s, an EOS 3 and a 20D, replete with all sorts of expensive canon toys like flashes and controls etc… in short, I’ve spent just $20k on my setup… end result is that Ryan can get just as good a shot with his camera as I can. I refused to place a link to refer anyone to their website as its free advertising and the payout doesnt justify it for me. On a recent return to their site, my upload facilities have been removed… is this a message for me? I dont know… but anyways… this is just my experience….